It covered historical notions of women as “misbegotten” lesser humans, as helplessly insatiable and promiscuous, and as ever in danger of being considered unmarriageable and “spoiled goods” if subject to even the hint of impropriety.

But no discussion about sex, be it in a historical or a modern context, can be deemed complete without a parallel discussion about the societal perception of women as sexual beings, as well as their sexual agency, or lack thereof.

Three years ago, I decided that writing a research essay on some aspect of medieval history once a month would be a good idea.

To be clear, it was a good idea. Although I’d already written the first draft of the first book of my historical fiction trilogy in 2006, I went on a six year writing hiatus after that, during which time I’d convinced myself I was giving up writing forever.

Sex and sexual relationships in the Middle Ages, much like during any age, were fraught with contradictions.

Most of these contradictions stemmed from the involvement of the medieval Church in dictating proper sexual conduct. In turn, according to Marty Williams and Anne Echols, authors of Between Pit and Pedestal: Women in the Middle Ages, the Church’s involvement was owing to the fact that,

Many theologians were completely unable to reconcile sex and the sacred because sex was viewed as something unholy and unclean (p. 86).

If there’s one aspect of medieval knights that tends to be grossly exaggerated in mainstream media, it’s the amount of time they spent in open warfare.

To begin with, as previously discussed in my post on the feudal system, a “knight’s fee”—that is, the assorted obligations a vassal owed his lord in exchange for the land he lived upon—was both passive and active in nature.